Medicinal and Aromatic Plants II

Question 1

Situation in Switzerland

Answer 1

Few individual MAP growers without association to grower groups

Cultivation mostly carried out in mountain areas

30 - 50% of production is organic certified

Majority of MAP growers is organized in cooperations

Cooperations: e.g. ARGE Bergkräuter, VBKB

Question 2

Situation abroad

Answer 2

Relatively few individual MAP growers remain

Strong tendency towards grouping of growers in small, medium or large grower organizations

Question 3

What it needs to produce and sell MAP’s successfully? - personal skills of the producer

Answer 3

Sound agricultural or horticultural background and prac- tical experience, preferably in special crops

Risk «appetite» and

Motivation to be a pioneer and to explore new crops

Enjoying to collaborate with like-minded other producers

Flexibility, readiness to carry out manual labour

Organisational talent

Ability to invest in specific equipment

Tolerance to frustration

Question 4

Qhat it needs to produce and sell MAP’s successfully - Quality awareness and contract management

Answer 4

Customer orientation

Efficient quality management

Clear agreements / contracts with the buyer, specifying

Quality expectations of the buyer (his specification - which
parameters, who and how to analyse)

Price

Appliances / chemicals that are approved/not-approved

Way of documentation

Time and processing status at delivery

Handling in case of over- and/or under-production

Potential solutions in case of quality deviations

Question 5

Specific equipment

Answer 5

Drying equipment
sowing, planting
weeding
harvesting
sizable fields
post harvest treatments, washing

Question 6

what other things are needed for successful selling and producing?

Answer 6

seed supliers
propagators/nurseries
manual labor at competitive rates
suitable infrastructure
a buyer (favorably more than one)
knowledge of buyer’s quality requirements

Question 7

Why is research in MAP’s neglected?

Answer 7

The «economic value» of the individual crops and the MAP industry as a whole is too small.

For the same reason, publically funded research also is limited.

As a consequence, in Switzerland - as in most other European countries- only few public and private organisations are involved in MAP research.